Spectrum sale: Govt eyes ‘good returns’

Communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said the government will repeat the success of “good returns” from spectrum auctions, which are likely to happen towards the middle of the year.Pankaj Doval | TNN | February 01, 2016, 13:48 IST

NEW DELHI: Communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said the government will repeat the success of "good returns" from spectrum auctions, which are likely to happen towards the middle of the year.

Prasad said the entry of JS Deepak as telecom secretary, in place of Rakesh Garg, will give an impetus to the auction process and also help pace up the ambitious Digital India programme, which aims to link lakhs of villages and gram panchayats through an optic fibre network.

"We will conduct the auctions in a fair, open and transparent manner, as we did last year which helped us raise a record Rs 1.1 lakh crore. I expect good returns from the process in this round as well," Prasad told TOI, days after regulator Trai recommended sale of over 2,000MHz spectrum, spread across seven telecom bands, including the high-potential but yet untested 700MHz frequency.

"Deepak had been my choice for the post of secretary for the past one month as Garg wanted to move out due to personal reasons. I expect things to move at a faster pace now with the entry of Deepak, including action against call drops."

A section of mobile operators has raised concerns over the proposed auctions, especially over the sale in the 700 MHz band where the pan-India reserve price permegahertz spectrum has been fixed at around Rs 11,500 crore. Gopal Vittal, CEO of the country's largest operator Bharti Airtel, has already dubbed this price as "too expensive and unaffordable", while ratings agency Fitch said telecom companies may not be very keen to bid for the 700MHz band due to their already-stretched balance sheets.

On the issue of call drops, he said the government wants further action by telecom operators to improve the situation. "More should be done even though the operators have installed over 34,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) across the country and 2,500 in Delhi after our intervention. We are keeping a close watch on the quality of the mobile service that is offered to consumers and will not hesitate to intervene in case more is required to be done."